Fading to Nothing
by AlexLone
Summary: What do you think happens when you are reduced to nothing.


Disclaimer: Don't own Agents of Shield, Marvel Concepts.

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Zero, nothing, it's a beautiful concept in maths. Not so beautiful when it is you.

I remember when I mattered, when I was part of the team, when I was a partner. Now I'm not.

You are thinking, who is this pathetic whiner? Hell, I'm thinking it too. I never thought I would be this maudlin.

We were a team, maybe not the dynamic duo but we had our moments, partners in work, friends joined at the hip. I think I wanted more, maybe once she did too.

I think it started almost instantly. Now I look back and think, why did I even think I had a chance? She was beautiful, smart and brilliant in the mind while also pleasing and attractive on the outside. Her enthusiasm infectious and I lived for her smile it seemed.

That is not the way of the world, even for the science geeks together, she was beautiful and could charm her way to anyones heart, I was just socially awkward. I thought she understood how hard it was, how I tried to convey things to her but when faced with a choice between the brave and strong Ward and the pale, awkward Fitz it is no surprise that she started to light up more with him.

I don't blame her for that or him, but it hurt like hell when the smiles I thought were only for me started disappearing and he got more radiant smiles. Even that events between May and Ward didn't dim it. Even though she said she knew I would have saved here started to ring false. Ward became her rock, her hero. So she began to drift away.

I tried, tried to hard to get her to notice me, my feelings but even in the lab she started to fall away from me. Between my awkwardness and her radiance, it was inevitable that FitzSimmons would be no more.

I could have handled losing her affection, even if it wasn't mine to begin with, but she started cutting me out of her life socially, our movie nights became rare and even then Skye and Ward joined us, nothing made sense anymore to me.

Okay, I lied, I wasn't okay with it at all, I hated him, Ward. Mister Wonderful, 'I'll catch you when you fall, jump out a plane to save' hero-boy. I hated her, even as I loved her, I hated her. She fell for the hero, just like every other person in history, they always go for the dangerous ones, the heroic ones. Never-mind I had been there through thick and thin, we supported each other, helped each other, relied on each other. Now I was yesterday.

As I said, zero is beautiful until it is you.

I still had my work, my machines and gadgets and I threw myself into it. I wish I could say it helped, maybe at least get me some respect.

I had worked all night in the lab, trying to get a new capture drone for super-humans to work. I would have done it during the day, but Simmons has begged me to fill out the paperwork that had piled up as Coulson had asked her to evaluate an unknown toxin. As a good partner, I helped out, it as just one time and we had been busy.

That one time became two times, three times and almost every other day and like a complete sap I did it. I did it for her.

Then I found out she had been invited to present something at a high-profile SHIELD technology meeting. I found out by accident, overhearing a conversation between Coulson and Skye about how it was good Simmons was getting recognition.

While I may not be the hacker par-excellence, I know a few things, so I found out about this meeting through less than official channels. There it was, Jemma Simmons on the list of presenters. I found out what she was presenting, I nearly threw the computer out the lab. It being bolted down due to us being on a plane stopped that idea.

She was presenting work that we did jointly, the work was a collaboration we had been doing for months. I looked to see if there was anyone else listed on the work, but no, the work was being presented as solely her work.

I should have said something but didn't, I couldn't believe it but didn't want to come across as petty or jealous.

So after this meeting, Simmons was in demand for many different things, so my own work in the lab began to get shunted to the side to help her even when she was off somewhere else.

I often ended up working late into the night, just to keep on top of things, which really rankled me when I frequently saw her, Ward and Skye larking about. Coulson and May were just as complicit in this, they were the senior agents, they should have ensured a fair workload but no. Simmons was flavour of the month. Even in the lab now, Skye and Ward would come in to talk to her and just ignore me, even Simmons unless it was to tell me to do something almost entirely stopped speaking to me.

I hated them, I hated the Bus, I hated myself for being so weak as to let it happen.

It continued that lots of my work was being presented by Simmons, I mean she is brilliant and highly intelligent but she is a biochemist and yet is now getting credit for my engineering work.

My field work dried up unless there was an engineering task to accomplish in the field, even Skye saw more field time than me. I was the lackey, the assistant.

Then Simmons got promoted, I only found out when I refused to do something for her because I was working on something else. Then Skye just happened to drop in that Simmons was my boss now as she had been promoted to level 6 and given the title of lead scientist on the team. I must have looked a right mug at that point, Simmons and Skye just laughed it off but I had to do as she instructed, Coulson and Ward made this clear. SHIELD works because there is a clear structure, I remember the lecture as I complained about it to Coulson.

I had gone from been her best friend, her partner in the lab, maybe at one point something more to being nothing but the hired help. The rest didn't help, it was made very clear in their attitudes that I was the junior scientist and not really a field operative at all in their eyes, even Skye unofficially was given the go-ahead to order me about.

I would say I requested a transfer or quit but I didn't. I was weak.

Zero is beautiful, but only as a concept.

I wonder if that is true anymore.

It's late now, and I just have to finish this one last thing.

There, it's now perfect, no weight imbalance, no misfiring, no odd behaviours, the Night-Night gun finished as it will ever be.

I leave it on the lab bench with a note.

I walk to the rear of the plane, everyone is off-duty, and I disabled the doors to the cargo bay.

I open the cargo doors, the alarms begin to ring.

At 20000 feet, the world looks so calm.

I don't look round, I don't care enough to see if anyone came running to see what was happening.

I step off.

It is not as loud as I would have thought.

Zero is beautiful in maths, I never thought it would be beautiful in anything else.

I wonder if it will hurt.

I wonder if I will be zero.

Zero.


End file.
